The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999

In addition to the employers’ duty to assess the health and safety risks [PDF 80kb] there are particular responsibilities towards young people:

• to assess risks to all young people under 18 years of age, before they start work;
• to ensure the risk assessment takes into account their psychological or physical immaturity, inexperience, and lack of awareness of existing or potential risks;
• to introduce control measures to eliminate or minimise the risks, so far as is reasonably practicable.

In addition, employers should:

• let the parents/carers of any children below the MSLA know the key findings of the risk assessment and the control measures introduced, before the child starts work or work experience. This information can be provided in any appropriate form including verbally or directly to the parents or carers or, in the case of work experience, via an organisation such as the school, the work experience organiser, or if agreed with the parents, via the child him or herself, as long as this is considered a reliable method;
• address certain specified factors in the risk assessment;
• take account of the risk assessment in deciding whether the young people should be prohibited from certain work activities, except in specified circumstances.

These specific requirements do not apply to young people in occasional work or short-term work involving:

• domestic service in a private household;
• work regarded as not being harmful, damaging or dangerous to young people in a family undertaking.

However, family businesses, like other employers, need to comply with the general health and safety requirement to carry out a risk assessment and other relevant requirements in specific health and safety law. The risk assessment will help establish if the work is harmful, damaging or dangerous to young people.

Family firm - A firm owned by, and employing members of, the same family, ie husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, stepfathers, stepmothers, sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, stepsons, stepdaughters, brothers, sisters, half-brothers and half-sisters.